In the new film from award-winning Turkish writer-director Emin Alper, an ex-con, just released after serving a 15-year sentence, is recruited as a police informant as political violence grips Istanbul.

Frenzy

Emin Alper

Year

2015

Runtime

117 min

Language

Turkish

Country

Qatar, France, Turkey

Principal Cast

Mehmet Özgür, Berkay Ates, Tülin Özen, Müfit Kayacan, Ozan Akbaba

From Turkish director Emin Alper, director
of the award-winning Beyond the Hill,
comes a disturbing psychological thriller.
Chaos and paranoia rule in Alper's vision
of Istanbul: armed groups battle police,
fires light the streets, and citizens inform
on one another. In the midst of this political
strife, two long-separated brothers attempt
to reconnect.

Kadir (Mehmet Özgür), just released
from prison after twenty years, is forced to
turn informant as a condition of his parole.
Longing for a connection untainted by the
mania surrounding him, he immediately
goes in search of his younger brother, Ahmet
(Berkay Ates), who has a job hunting dogs for
the municipality. Ahmet is just as lonely and
mistrustful as Kadir, and has begun to care
for one of the very animals he's meant to kill.
Fearful that his new canine companion will
be discovered by the authorities, Ahmet goes
into hiding — and when Kadir is unable to
find him, his imagination runs wild and he
takes matters into his own hands. Even in
this environment of unremitting backstabbing
and turmoil, Kadir and Ahmet's worst
enemies just might be themselves.

Most of Frenzy's action takes place in the
characters' minds, with Adam Jandrup's
striking cinematography and Alper's
command of craft combining to create a
tense, eerie, and imposing atmosphere
that echoes Polanski's Repulsion and
Cronenberg's Dead Ringers. The audience
is left to determine what is real and what is
imagined. What's certain is that Kadir and
Ahmet are living in nightmares of their own
creation; what's uncertain is whether they
will ever wake up.

CONTEMPORARY WORLD SPEAKERSStephen J. Toope, Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and an officer of the Order of Canada, is an international scholar on law, human rights, and global affairs. He will speak about Frenzy in a Q&A session following the second screening of the film. Special thanks to the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs.